Thread: Obama lifts ban on US entry for those with HIV

By DARLENE SUPERVILLE
Associated Press Writer


WASHINGTON (AP) - President Barack Obama said Friday the U.S. will overturn a 22-year-old travel and immigration ban against people with HIV early next year.

The order will be finalized on Monday, Obama said, completing a process begun during the Bush administration.

The U.S. has been among a dozen countries that bar entry to travelers with visas or anyone seeking a green card based on their HIV status.

"If we want to be the global leader in combatting HIV/AIDS, we need to act like it," Obama said at the White House before signing a bill to extend the Ryan White HIV/AIDS program. Begun in 1990, the program provides medical care, medication and support services to about half a million people, most of them low-income.

The bill is named for an Indiana teenager who contracted AIDS through a blood transfusion at age 13. White went on to fight AIDS-related discrimination against him and others like him and help educate the country about the disease. He died in April 1990 at the age of 18.

His mother, Jeanne White-Ginder, attended the signing ceremony, as did several members of Congress and HIV/AIDS activists.

In 1987, at a time of widespread fear and ignorance about HIV, the Department of Health and Human Services added the disease to the list of communicable diseases that disqualified a person from entering the U.S.

The department tried in 1991 to reverse its decision but was opposed by Congress, which went the other way two years later and made HIV infection the only medical condition explicitly listed under immigration law as grounds for inadmissibility to the U.S.

The law effectively has kept out thousands of students, tourists and refugees and has complicated the adoption of children with HIV. No major international AIDS conference has been held in the U.S. since 1993, because HIV-positive activists and researchers cannot enter the country.

Obama said that by lifting the ban, the U.S. will take a step toward ending the stigma against people with HIV/AIDS, something he said has stopped people from getting tested and has helped spread the disease. More than 1 million people live with HIV/AIDS in the U.S., and more than 56,000 new infections are reported every year.

Obama noted his own effort several years ago to help combat the stigma. During a 2006 visit to Kenya, his father's native country, then-Sen. Obama and his wife, Michelle, publicly took an HIV/AIDS test.

The 11 other countries that ban HIV-positive travelers and immigrants are: Armenia, Brunei, Iraq, Libya, Moldova, Oman, Qatar, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Korea and Sudan, according to the advocacy group Immigration Equality.

Several such groups welcomed Obama's announcement.

Rachel B. Tiven, executive director of Immigration Equality, said the ban pointlessly has barred people from the U.S. and separated families with no benefit to public health.

"Now, those families can be reunited, and the United States can put its mouth where its money is: ending the stigma that perpetuates HIV transmission, supporting science and welcoming those who seek to build a life in this country," said Tiven, whose organization works for fairness in immigration for gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and HIV-positive people.

http://www.ksl.com/?nid=126&sid=8498518

the United States can put its mouth where its money is:

Excuse me. What money?

I think those laws were put into effect for a reason. As the Constitution states to protect the citizens of this nation.

Ok. Obama wants HIV , homosexuality,gay marriages,illegal aliens, debt,open borders,release prisoners in Guantanamo Bay, abortions paid for thru the new healthcare plan,cap-and-trade

WOW. WHAT A DREAM...WHAT A COUNTRY!

Yes, let's take in all the HIV patients and their extended family of the world, it's not like we are in the midst of our country's worse depression ever. Sarcasm.

Oh let em all in! Even if they have TB, leprosy, pandemic flu, we would not want to discriminate against any contagious diseases would we?

After all, not letting someone in with an infectious disease is just another example of how silly and hateful we all are right?

And someone please tell me WHAT THE HELL IS PRESIDENT OBAMA DOING MAKING IMMIGRATION POLICY WHEN THAT POWER IS SPECIFICALLY ENUMERATED IN THE US CONSTITUTION TO THE CONGRESS?

I guess I should not dare to even second guess our emperor?


W

Realisticly! Diseases do not just apply to human viruses and diseases.

Ever since our borders and trade agreements opened up to the world we have had impacts on our environment. Problems in the lakes,and streams,trees. Trees being infested by insects not originally from our own continent or hemisphere. Florida has problems too in the grassy wetlands with high population of snakes not from this continent and no formidible enemy.

Some of these critters are riding the freight over or are on the black markets. They can not check all the cargo coming into the USA.

Originally Posted by uniteasone

Realisticly! Diseases do not just apply to human viruses and diseases.

Ever since our borders and trade agreements opened up to the world we have had impacts on our environment. Problems in the lakes,and streams,trees. Trees being infested by insects not originally from our own continent or hemisphere. Florida has problems too in the grassy wetlands with high population of snakes not from this continent and no formidible enemy.

Some of these critters are riding the freight over or are on the black markets. They can not check all the cargo coming into the USA.

I think I read that they only check 5% of the cargo coming into this nation.

And this AIDS thing...in addition to Nobama violating our Constitution, is just one more thing the out-of-work American people will pay for...while we struggle to keep our own heads above water. Every AIDS victim in the world will want to come here now and if they can't do it legally, they'll just do it illegally...and WE will foot the bill for it all while we struggle to hang on...

This is absolutely outrageous and grounds for impeachment. It is a clear violation of the sacred oath to protect and defend the people of the United States. The oath to protect and defend has always required that we exclude people wanting to enter our country who havedeadly infectious diseases. To exclude HIV/AIDS from that list, one of the most infectious and deadly diseases since the Plague, is an act of inexplicable betrayal of the American People and breach of the Presidents oath of office.

And that Stupid Sebelius needs to be carted back to Kansas in an apple wagon.

Originally Posted by ALIPAC

Oh let em all in! Even if they have TB, leprosy, pandemic flu, we would not want to discriminate against any contagious diseases would we?

After all, not letting someone in with an infectious disease is just another example of how silly and hateful we all are right?

And someone please tell me WHAT THE HELL IS PRESIDENT OBAMA DOING MAKING IMMIGRATION POLICY WHEN THAT POWER IS SPECIFICALLY ENUMERATED IN THE US CONSTITUTION TO THE CONGRESS?

I guess I should not dare to even second guess our emperor?


W

Yeah he hopes we do not notice he is already the dictator. He could care less about keeping us safe from disease a good example is the Swine flu , thank God it proved to NOT be as deadly as many thought, still he was taking a HUGE chance with millions of American's lives and he could have cared less.

Oh, we are having fun now. And for us to be a leader in medicine, we need a lot more ebola virus, IMO. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ebola

The incubation period can range from 2 to 21 days but is generally 5–10 days.[40] Symptoms are varied and often appear suddenly. Initial symptoms include high fever (at least 38.8°C; 101.8°F), severe headache, muscle, joint, or abdominal pain, severe weakness, exhaustion, sore throat, nausea, dizziness, internal and external bleeding.[41] Before an outbreak is suspected, these early symptoms are easily mistaken for malaria, typhoid fever, dysentery, influenza, or various bacterial infections, which are all far more common and reliably less fatal.

Ebola may progress to cause more serious symptoms, such as diarrhea, dark or bloody feces, vomiting blood, red eyes due to distension and hemorrhage of sclerotic arterioles, petechia, maculopapular rash, and purpura. Other, secondary symptoms include hypotension (low blood pressure), hypovolemia, and tachycardia. The interior bleeding is caused by a reaction between the virus and the platelets that produces a chemical that will cut cell-size holes into the capillary walls.

On occasion, internal and external hemorrhage from orifices, such as the nose and mouth, may also occur, as well as from incompletely-healed injuries such as needle-puncture sites. Ebola virus can affect the levels of white blood cells and platelets, disrupting clotting. More than 50% of patients will develop some degree of hemorrhaging.

[edit] Diagnosis
Methods of diagnosis of Ebola include testing saliva and urine samples. Ebola is diagnosed with an Enzyme-Linked ImmunoSorbent Assay (ELISA) test. This diagnosis method has produced potentially ambiguous results during non-outbreak situations. Following Reston, and in an effort to evaluate the original test, Dr. Karl Johnson of the CDC tested San Blas Indians from Central America, who have no history of Ebola infection, and observed a 2% positive result. Other researchers later tested sera from Native Americans in Alaska and found a similar percentage of positive results. To combat the false positives, a more complex test based on the ELISA system was developed by Tom Kzaisek at USAMRIID, which was later improved with Immunofluorescent antibody analysis (IFA). It was however not used during the serosurvey following Reston.[42] These tests are not commercially available.[43]

[edit] Treatment

A hospital isolation ward in Gulu, Uganda, during the October 2000 outbreakThere is no standard treatment for Ebola hemorrhagic fever. Treatment is primarily supportive and includes minimizing invasive procedures, balancing electrolytes, and, since patients are frequently dehydrated, replacing lost coagulation factors to help stop bleeding, maintaining oxygen and blood levels, and treating any complicating infections.

My big objection is the health care issue.People who have incurable diseases require ongoing drugs,hospitalization and treatments.

Who do you suppose is going to pay for these immigrants health care ?